#kent parson discourse

[allowaykirk]

Ngozi is so brave reigniting conversations about Check Please discourse because holy shit this fandom has had some wild times

[aristocrating]

Hot take: Kent haters are the worst people in all of fandom. Especially all these haters coming in now who don't understand the history of the fandom. They put so much energy into hating him for no reason. He already "lost" in canon. He "apologized." He's not a threat to zimbits, right? RIGHT? WHY ARE YOU BOOING ME? I'M RIGHT!

I think the phenomenon you're observing is a symptom of the fact that few people are skilled at the art of being a hater. As a certified Hater, allow me to elaborate.

I think it's fine, healthy even, to hate on Kent for several reasons: he's all setup and no punchline. Everything about Kent in canon is undercooked, he's hardly even a husk of a character, a ghost in a brittle narrative that people (like me) just can't let the fuck go. Colloquially you might call him overrated. And I would say, sure. You're onto something. Yap about it to me.

But what I can't stand is people conflating the barely-character of Kent Parson with some sort of moral judgement about either the character or the people who like him/wish we had gotten more of him. Especially when it involves pop-psychology armchair diagnoses of someone who barely appeared for three comic strips. Kent isn't manipulative. He's not malicious. He's not evil. He's barely even in the comic. Kent Parson isn't real, he can't hurt you. IF you want to delve into the subject of what Kent Parson could be representative of (trauma, envy, retaliation) then I expect that you approach the subject with empathy and an interest for valuable character analysis. If you show up with "Kent is actually xyz and that's my justification for hating him and people who like him" I'm going to assume that you apply that fundamentalist thinking to your interaction with real life people too. He's a cartoon character. If what he represents to you upsets you, it's your responsibility to put your phone down.

Re: history of the fandom. Is there any place where the stuff that happened is chronicled? I don't wanna regurgitate it all in this post (so apologies for being vague (Am I the drama? I don't think I'm the drama. Maybe I am.) but I think it would be valuable for people to know what went down so they can know why anon is so exhausted.

As far as hotness of this take. I feel like this take is kind of baked into the Check Please mythos at this point, as well as the context of the greater fandom discourse (re: pro-shipping and what not). I think I will give it a mild 5/10 problematic faves

👱🏻‍♂️👱🏻‍♂️👱🏻‍♂️👱🏻‍♂️👱🏻‍♂️

Ps: "valuable". I should be an English high school teacher, god.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Helloooooo, internet land! This week, Emily and V were treated to a primer on the OMG Check Please! fandom by listener and friend-of-the-pod @korechthonia, and Emily explains the divide between the pro-Parse and anti-Parse sides of the otherwise sweet and peaceful fandom. Plus, she tells V about growing up on a boys' hockey team herself and losing a tooth on the ice! Also, inextricable from OMGCP's sweet tale of gay hockey players in love is the sad, homophobic truth of the NHL, so we had to dig into that as well. But mostly: cute hockey comic about love and pies. WERE YOU PART OF THE KENT PARSON DISCOURSE OF 2016 OR WERE YOU NORMAL? If you would like to suggest an event in fandom history and/or give us a fandom primer, get in touch on our Tumblr! You can support this podcast and also get in touch with us on Patreon.

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

[deepbutdazzlingdarkness]

I think @kennyomegasweave tagged me in this OTP meme like...months ago? And I just found it half-finished in my drafts and decided to actually get it done.

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore? 20s, not my teens, but I used to be utterly obsessed with Jack/Kent from Check Please and now, IDEK what happened. I still love them, but I have old fic I saved and never read and can't bring myself to care anymore. IDK it makes me sad.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one? Hmm probably Betsy/Joe from the Betsy Tacy series or Anne/Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables? My first ships when I actually got into fandom were Sawyer/Kate and Sara/Grissom from CSI.

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple? Magnus/Alec!!! I never thought I would write fic and then I watched season 1 of Shadowhunters and banged out (lol) 7 fics and almost 30k of porn in less than 2 months in 2016. They all have an insane number of hits (like. the highest has 54,878 hits and the lowest has 15,836 hits.........) and I still get kudos on them almost every day, it's wild.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over? Genuinely no idea, but the first one in my fan art tag is Katniss/Peeta from 2012 <3

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse? My first instinct whenever I see someone talk about something I don't like is to mute/block, so perhaps not actively, but I'm sure I have at some point.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently? LOL. Yes. I still fucking HATE Jack/Kate from Lost and always will. Also Dan/Blair from Gossip Girl. Lately...I'm such a multi-shipper but I gotta say Kate/Anthony from Bridgerton bc I've genuinely had to restrain myself from bitching about how much I hate them SO many times since s3 came out lol.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read? I finished a rewatch of Beyond Evil last night so I've been rereading some of my old bookmarks bc I've read almost everything that's out there 😔. Shout out to the masterpiece simple & clean by whir.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs? So many!!! Taemin/Kai is still my #1, but also Juwon/Dongsik from Beyond Evil, PatPran from Bad Buddy (it took me several episodes to actually get into the show but once I did I cried...so much over them and how much they love each other LOL), KunTen from WayV, Louis/Lestat...I feel kinda bad that I don't have a major current f/f OTP but I'm literally checking my kpop tags multiple times a week for rule 63 fic and most of my current WIPs are rule 63 f/f so there's that. (Two KunTen including what hopefully is gonna be a long one, plus a Jigyu I started yesterday for a fest that I'm hoping I'll be able to get done - not because of the length, but because I've never written Seventeen before)

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together? So many??? I feel like I have to say Dean/Cas.......Lee/Kara never really got together so them for sure. Sawyer/Kate from Lost even though I 100% choose to believe they got together post-canon pre-flash-sideways. Oh my god I'm looking through my "forever bitter" tag and it's a lot of Cooper/Audrey from Twin Peaks as I expected, but I forgot about Mini/Franky from Skins. and ABSOLUTELY THEM. Everything about series 5 was terrible but that especially.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting? IDK I feel like I don't usually change my mind like that. I wouldn't go as far as saying "kind of interesting" but I guess I don't hate Bree/Roger from Outlander AS much on the show as I did in the books lol.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over? Hmm...Cesare/Lucrezia maybe? If not them almost definitely Norma/Dylan from Bates Motel LOL.

12. What was your favorite crack ship? I was gonna say I couldn't remember any that truly fit this definition, but then I remembered the Kent Parson/Claude Giroux series #dirtbags and that was great. Actually no my real answer is Syd/Richie from The Bear. Now *I* don't think it's a crackship but they have that vibe.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of? Here's a side by side view of my most bookmarked ships vs the tags I have saved rn on my front page. Unfortunately you can only have 20 but I think it's a pretty good representation. (Other than the ENHA ship, where I legit don't know anything about them or frankly even what they look like, but that tag produces so much incredible unhinged porn that I read canon-blind.)

14. What most of your ships usually have in common? I feel like I have several different ~types, but: friends to lovers, I LOVE bicker-y couples, age gap relationships, especially when one of them is a mentor-ish figure, and power dynamics in general.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship? Nice Guy characters, whether they're a guy or a girl. The OG example is Xander (duh) and Chloe from Smallville but you also see it with characters like Sol on My Stand In...there's def more things I hate but that's one of most major ones for me.

[evakuality]

I have no time for anything rn (5 days to go til things settle and I can't wait!!!!!) but watching OFMD fandom discourse develop over the last few weeks has been a real 'this is Kent Parson all over again' experience, and tbh I'm too tired to deal with all that again.

Which I guess is good because it means I won't be getting into the fandom properly. Pros: no emotional investment in the discourse. Cons: no desire to write fic even though there's so much just BEGGING to be written

[icecreampotluck]

fic stats meme

twas tagged by @jeeyuns

rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words.

SIDE NOTE: i have not published 911 fic!!!! trust me i am also mad at me for this!!!!! i am working on it!!! so instead everyone gets a look into the history on my ao3 profile that hasn't had anything updated since 2021 and my most written for fandom. (i am not going to publish anything in 911 fandom until it's fully written to avoid the unfinished fate of a lot of these works dw) but I WANT TO PARTICIPATE!!!! so here goes!!

most hits: i've tried goodbye a hundred times (not one of them true)

Check, Please! (Webcomic), Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter

The first time it happens, it’s daisies. Seven year old William watches in fascination as the flowers appear, line by line, around his wrist and up his arm. They’re just black outlines, with little yellow dots in the middle, but they fascinate him, and he watches as they grow all the way up to his elbow. And then Mitch slams his desk.

yeah i'll be real with you besties. this will probably never be updated again. which is so sad because apparently it's my work with the most hits. but i'm a polyfrogs bitch now!!!! people change!!!!! i don't even remember where the plot was going. this is not the target audience of this apology but you're the ones who get it.

second most kudos: Amy Parson Takes No Shit

Check, Please! (Webcomic), Kent "Parse" Parson/Original Character(s)

She hates this. She hates knowing that for all the talk of acceptance and anyone being able to play, it doesn’t matter. If she told the team, she can’t imagine what they’d think. And God, management would be a nightmare. She shouldn’t have to pick between hockey and being herself but she does and she’s made her choice. Someday, she’s gonna find a way to have her cake and eat it, too.

oh my god so. okay. the tag "im tired of cis bullshit" on this work is so funny. 1) the "cis bullshit" in question was genderbends which is the most 2017 discourse imaginable. 2) when i wrote that tag I identified as cis. LMAOOOOO. i thought i was being such a good ally writing this fic. and then somewhere along the way i was like "goddamm why do i relate so much to Amy's choosing to ruthlessly be herself and why am i jealous of it." and here we are. so this work holds a special place in my heart and i will finish it if it kills me and also probably rewrite the early chapters because they are SIX YEARS OLD oh my god i was FIFTEEN. they could be better, and they will be.

third most comments: all the gun fights, and the lime lights, and the holy sick divine nights

Check, Please! (Webcomic), Derek "Nursey" Nurse/Kent "Parse" Parson

Nursey rolls over in bed the morning after Epikegster, and finds himself face to face with Kent Parson. Kent is drooling, and still asleep, so Nursery takes a moment to assess the situation. Kent has all the covers and is kind of hogging whatever bed they’re in, which appears to be in a hotel room. Nursey is naked, and a quick inventory of the floor leads him to believe that most if not all of his clothing is there. He glances down at himself, and notices a not insignificant number of mouth sized bruises littering his torso. His therapist has been teaching him about not jumping to conclusions, but he’s starting to think he hooked up with Kent Parson.

you won't get it unless you Get It but this is the funniest possible rairpair. i'd love to finish this someday and fix the haphazard characterization. the plot was good as shit i just have to hope i get inspiration back after *checks notes* five years! we'll see!

fourth most bookmarks: i've got you (and you've got me)

Check, Please! (Webcomic), Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann

    He’s done it.     He’s graduated, and he’s got his degree, and he’s got an internship lined up, and he can’t wait to get on with the rest of his life.     And he’s got Jack. Oh, lordy, how could he forget Jack?     Jack who is currently waving at him from across the quad, waiting by the lake. Bitty has been saying his goodbyes to his parents, and now, he turns and heads over to him.     “Hey, you.”

yeah i don't have a lot to say about this one! it was okay! least words: would you love me less (if you knew the beds that i've been in)

Check, Please! (Webcomic), Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann

Eric Bittle, struggling baker, runner of a not so struggling premium snapchat, frequenter of the Seattle Fitness Center. Jack Zimmermann, history teacher, boyfriend of Kent Parson, frequenter of the Seattle Fitness Center. Kent Parson, part-time wedding planner, allosexual who's demisexual boyfriend has approved his porn habits but has no interest in partaking, frequenter of some blond twink's premium snapchat.

ZERO words baby!!!! that's what happens on the archive's backend when a fic is told ENTIRELY THROUGH FAKED SCREENSHOTS (and some gym membership cards)!!!!!! i wanna redo some of the things in here and also. you know. finish the entire fic. trust me it's GLORIOUS. if you click on nothing else in this post because you aren't into check please click on this and be proud of some of the edits. (not the reddit one i like. quarter assed that one rather than find a template) this is the fanwork of mine im most proud of i love it so much PLEASE ask me about it even if you haven't read check please i'll happily gush about the plot.

that is all sorry that this is literally NO wee woo content. tagging @evcndiaz @lucydonato @shitouttabuck @housewifebuck and anyone else who wants to do this!

[heeyjuuuude]

there’s something really, really interesting about taking one of a fandom’s most disliked prominent characters and looking through their eyes, and that’s why kent parson redemption fics are so important. everyone fucks up, like all the time, and however much you dislike a character, they are, to a point, entitled to be forgiven too. if you’d rather decide kent is unforgiveable, that’s entirely your choice, but don’t be rude to people who look at him and say ‘there’s something more here, and i want to know what it is’

[hufflepunkwannabe]

Both the people who think Kent is the only good part of omgcp and those who think he's Satan are low-key toxic

[garden-of-succulents]

faiasakura replied to your post “In the wake of 3.26 and Kent’s Blue Screen of Death face at the...”

Wow it sucks that you've gotten enough hate that you have to be on edge about what you post. I wish fandom could learn to chill and hate less. For what it's worth, I've read your fic and appreciate your existence in this fandom.

Thank you!

I miss the Kent fans who got chased out of fandom. A lot of them were amazing and talented and just couldn’t take it anymore. (*especially sends love to @perichareia and @littlestpersimmon*)

[maeve-of-winter]

One of the reasons I feel like the Parse hate in this fandom can be somewhat depressing is because I feel it’s an example what how people react to a queer character who’s not perfect and only has limited time to develop. Kent’s not soft and nice like Bitty, and he doesn’t have enough story focus to change before the story is over like Jack does.

Parse is a queer character with a past and he’s affected by it. He’s angry at Jack about shutting him out, and he lets Jack know it, and therefore he’s “toxic”. He loses his temper with Jack and therefore he’s an “abuser” and a “manipulator”. He’s on a team with homophobic teammate and has no visible support system and therefore stays in the closet, and because of that, it’s somehow okay to call him stupid or mock him for it.

And even though I was less than thrilled with Kent’s ending in 4.19, it says a lot to me that Kent acknowledges that he’s made mistakes and is choosing to move on from Jack and recognizes both of them have changed that they’re not the people they used to be. But most of Parse-critical posts don’t acknowledge this ending except to cheer Bitty on for yelling at him. 

I always see complaints on this site about how “the straights don’t understand” about what queer individuals go through, and I’m not trying to equate RL suffering with fictional conflicts. But it’s funny how fandom immediately turns their backs on a queer character if they’ve gone through a rough time and dare to be imperfect and rough around the edges as a result. Seems like we still need our queer characters to be model minorities before they can be seen as worthy.

[jacksbits]

tbh at some point i’m just like.... anti kent folks just cannot be pleased. y’all  literally want kent fans to constantly and continually prostrate themselves on the ground apologizing for every bad thing he’s ever done.

like there is this weird expectation that if someone makes one (1) single cute post about kent without saying “BUT ALSO I STILL DON’T CONDONE HIS BAD BEHAVIOR” then you’re somehow this Bad Fan Who Glorifies Abuse. like, i have made and reblogged a lot of kent posts. some of them talk about how he fucked up and how he could recover in the future. also? some of them don’t.

but anti kent people don’t want to see ANY kent content EVER that isn’t actively deconstructing the fight he and jack had. that’s the only good & morally acceptable kent content. any other content is bad abuse apologism.

and like? i’m just tired of it. i can’t convince you. you hate kent and you hate me and i wish you’d just block his name on xkit and leave me out of it. because i cannot reach your unreasonable standard of purity!!!! i’m sorry!!! i can’t do it!!!! i’ve spent many thousands of words thinking about how & why kent exploded at epikegster. everyone fuckin knows that boy utterly & unjustifiably lost his shit. if any of the people who hated kent fans so much honestly spoke to any of us for five minutes they’d know that we all know that? we know. we know.

but i cannot talk about it every second of every day for the rest of my fannish life!! i can’t! because i genuinely believe that people can grow and forgiveness is possible, and i can see a path to reconciliation between jack and kent. and sometimes i just want to take that path as a given and think about the future? i don’t think that’s wrong of me.

[redporkpadthai]

Jack fan: I love this character because I identify with his mental illness.

Kent fan:I love this character because I identify with his mental illness.

CP fandom at Kent fans: YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!!YOU'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO LIKE OR IDENTIFY WITH A CHARACTER'S MENTAL ILLNESS IF THEY ARE THE VICTIM!!!!!

[sincerelyreidburke]

Chapter 11: early to rise

Hey, poindextears, why did you choose to make Dex’s best friend Kent Effing Parson? Good question. Anyway, there’s more Dex & Kent interaction in the newest chapter of love finds you on ao3. Have fun!

Will squeezes his eyes shut and blurts, “Derek is a time traveler.”

Kent is silent. For a heart-thumping few seconds, the whole apartment is silent, and the diner downstairs with it. This silence is intimidating enough for Will to want to open his eyes again.

And when he does, Kent promptly bursts out laughing. Will frowns.

“Okay, very funny,” he chuckles. “What is this, the Twilight Zone?”

[porcupine-girl]

x.x i have a pimmbits problem, pg. why. why do complicated poly relationships hurt me this way. bitty would be so GOOD for them, help jack and parse heal their fucked up shit, and help them be better for each other and him going forward... x.x (going of course with fanon parse, bc canon parse has... yeah. as you know.)

Sorry, but you’re talking to the wrong person for this. I’ll read some patater or kent/oc, but I sometimes filter out kent/bitty and kent/jack/bitty from the jack/bitty tag on AO3 because it literally makes me feel ill. I know fanon Kent is way different from canon Kent, but it’s still a big ‘ol nope for me. I have zero, possibly negative five, need to see jack and kent heal their fucked up shit beyond friendship, with or without bitty’s help. There are probably AUs where I’d be okay with it, but it’s not really worth it for me to find out.

Looks like you’ve got to find some more OMGCP blogs to follow! Lucky you, you’ve reached the next stage in your fandom development!

I’m posting this publicly because I’m sure my followers can recommend some PB&J blogs for you. :)

[fullsundiall]

so maybe jack became less of an asshole faster then kent but he was also in a very open, supportive college and had good close friends while kent was in the nhl (ie. NOT the best place to improve yourself

[legojacques]

Parse and the Latest Update

Ohhhhhh! Where do I start with the symbolism of the latest update?

Let’s start with the colours he’s wearing.

When we first met Kent Parson, he was the one in control of the situation when he’d shown up at that party and Jack was the one who was thrown. Notice the outfit he’d chosen: a white, plaid shirt.

Nowwwwww, in this latest update, we see a reversal of that control. Jack is the one who’s taken control of his narrative by kissing Bitty on camera and Parse is the one who’s unexpectedly thrown by the news. And this time, he’s wearing dark, inverse colours, but the same plaid pattern.

Additionally, I think the placement of Kent’s hat is interesting too. In the first panel, the Aces hat had been meant as a reminder to Jack of what he’d lost when he’d missed the Draft. Kent had an NHL team and Jack didn’t.

And now, in the bar, Parse isn’t wearing his hat, signifying that his team is not “with him” in some sense, which we can see the casually homophobic comments thrown out there. Parse’s teammates aren’t supportive, and they aren’t “on his team”. Again, this is the inverse of Jack who now has a supportive team now and Parse does not.

Finally, the watch is fascinating! Kent’s wearing what looks to be different watches in the two comic panels. The first one has a round face while the second one is more rectangular. AND Kent switches hands– the first watch is on his left hand while the second watch is on his right hand.

I have no theory for that one. Thoughts?